the effect of teaching metacognitive listening...
TRANSCRIPT
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive Listening Strategy
during Shadowing Activity on Field-Dependent and Field-
Independent EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension
Parastoo Alizadeh Oghyanous 1, Mona Khabiri 2*
1. 2, Department of English, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran,
Iran
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Received: 2016.4.27
Accepted: 2017.10.28
Online publication: 2017.12.10
Abstract
This study aimed to compare the effect of teaching metacognitive listening
strategies through shadowing activity on the listening comprehension of field-
dependent (FD) and field-independent (FI) EFL learners. Since the researcher
had access only to female participants,85 female EFL learners from a language
institute in Tehran, at the pre-intermediate level of proficiency with the age range
of 18-35 were selected out of the initial 120 participants based on their
performance on a piloted PET. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was
administered to the selected participants in order to categorize them into the two
experimental groups (49 FD and 36 FI). The participants including both FD and
FI sat in several classes. During a five-week instruction period (twice a week),
both groups practiced listening comprehension for 45 minutes through a
combination of shadowing activity, and metacognitive strategy instruction with
no difference in treatment. The results of the independent samples t-test
demonstrated that there was no significant difference between listening posttest
scores of FI and FD groups. Therefore, it was concluded that metacognitive
strategy training coupled with shadowing activity could be equally beneficial in
terms of listening proficiency for all students regardless of their perceptual
tendency (FD/FI). The findings of the present study have implications for
language teachers regarding metacognitive strategy training and listening
comprehension enhancement.
Keywords: field-dependent/independent, listening comprehension, listening
strategies, metacognitive strategies, shadowing
The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol.10, No.21, pp.1-28, Fall & Winter 2017
2 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
Introduction
Obviously, listening is viewed as one of the most important language skills
and individual needs to develop, particularly, in English as Foreign Language
(EFL) contexts (Nation & Newton, 2009; Vandergrift, 2007). Accordingly,
second language learners try to make sense of what L2 speakers say, making
their best to access different kinds of aural and visual L2 texts. As Nation and
Newton (2009) assert, listening provides the L2 learners with information
through which they can build up the knowledge required for using the
language; and when this knowledge is built up, the L2 learners are able to
speak. It is likely that listening comprehension would ameliorate through the
use of listening comprehension strategies.
In the same vein, Vandergrift (2007) maintains that the mental processes
employed by the listener to make sense of the spoken English are generally
interpreted as listening comprehension strategies. Furthermore, as discussed by
Cohen (2000), a large number of researchers who are researching L2 listening
agree that listeners usually fail to effectively use listening tasks while they
apply such strategies on their own. Goh (2002) notes that the studies recently
conducted by scholars on the potential contributions of interactive listening to
communication have dealt with the learners' cognitive and metacognitive
abilities and comprehension processes while they are listening. Research on the
instruction of listening comprehension strategy has indicated that learners can
be taught to make use of strategies, and that these strategies enhance the quality
of their listening comprehension (Liu, as cited in Serri, Boroujeni, & Hesabi,
2012). Metacognitive and shadowing strategies are two of these important
strategies. As Oxford (2001) holds, styles and strategies serve as the main
factors enabling learners to find how and how well they have acquired a second
language or a foreign language. As Streufert and Nogami (1989) maintain, the
majority of studies in the field of learning styles have dealt with perception or
cognition.
The review of related literature reveals two main types of cognitive learning
styles, namely, field-dependence and field-independence. These styles are
concerned with various ways thereby learners process information. Actually, as
Keefe (1979) points out, field-dependence/independence dichotomy has to do
with the extent to which an individual uses an analytical versus a general
approach to experience his/her surrounding environment.
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 3
According to researchers (e.g., Morley, 1999; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992),
listening is viewed asthe skillmost frequently used by people. In fact, listening
is pivotal toall students throughout all levels oftheir educational development
(Coakley & Wolvin, 1997; Feyten, 1991). Accordingly, Underwood (1989)
spells out that listening is described as the individual's activity of paying
attention to and trying to derive meaning from something he/she is hearing. The
more comprehensive definition has been introduced by other researchers,
putting emphasis on the active and conscious nature of listening. That is, they
deal with essential information one extracts from context and background
knowledge. Such an active process is dependent on various strategies in order
to accomplish the objectives of the task (O‘Malley, Chamot, & Kupper, 1989).
Undoubtedly, listening is considered as an essential component of the
communication process, used in life situations on the daily basis. Given the
statistical results of research (e.g., Holden, 2004), adults are found to allocate
the following time portions while communicating with others: listening (40-
50%), speaking (25-30%), reading (10-15%), and writing (10%).As a matter of
fact, listening comprehension is viewed as an active skill as well as a conscious
process, providing listeners with a means to construct meaning. It also uses
cues retrieved from contextual information and existing knowledge (O'Mally, et
al., 1989).
Mendelsohn (1994) maintains that a skillful listener should possess the
capability to process the linguistic forms (speech speed and fillers) as well as
the ability to take part in an interaction with the aim of making sense of the
whole message of discourse in various genres. It does not require the individual
to understand every word. However, he/she also must know how to engage in
processing and judging the illocutionary force of a piece of speech so as to
figure out the meaning of connected speech in a particular setting as an act of
real communication.
Research (Shen, Guizhou, Wichura & Kiattichai, as cited in Gilakjani &
Ahmadi, 2011) shows that listening comprehension entails the individual's
active engagement, effort and practice during listening. This requires using
strategies to make listening more effective. Strategies are concerned with the
complex procedures used by the people to carry out tasks (O'Malley & Chamot,
1990). Vandergrift (1999) says that the acquisition of strategy makes an
4 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
important contribution to listening training as strategies are viewed as
conscious tools through which learners can channel and ascertain their own
comprehension and response. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies are two of
these strategies.
The term "cognition" belongs to the field of cognitive psychology, used to
explain the ways through which the individual process, recognize, encode, store
information in memory for various lengths of time. This information is
retrieved from storage to serve different purposes (Biehler & Snowman, 1993).
Metacognitive strategies are concerned with being aware of learning. Put it
other way, learners learn how to learn by the application of metacognitive
strategies (Ridley et al., 1992).
Vandergrift (1999) believes that the acquisition of strategy makes an
important contribution to listening training given the fact that strategies are
viewed as conscious tools used by learners to channel and assess their own
comprehension and response. Shadowing is a kind of strategy employed by
learners to enhance their listening comprehension.
Lambert (1992) describes shadowing as a tool which is concerned with
paced parrot-style auditory tracking task. As Tamai (1997) notes, shadowing is
not a passive activity, instead it is considered as a dynamic and cognitive
activity which enables learners to track and vocalize the heard speech as clearly
as possible during the time they are listening. In fact, the very act of repeating
incoming speech along with monitoring the shadowed material cause many
areas of the learners’ brains, particularly, the language centers to be actively
engaged (Kadota, as cited in Hamada, 2012).
Some researchers including Hamada (2011, 2012), Kato (2009), Mochizuki
(2006), Kuramoto, Nishida, Isobe, and Shiki (2010) have investigated the
impact of shadowing on listening comprehension skills, reproduction rate, and
working memory. Moreover, shadowing entails learners' role to fully activate
their cognitive processes in the brain (Hamada, 2012). Kadota (2009, as cited in
Hamada, 2015) concluded that when students engage in listening to heard
speech and reproducing it simultaneously, it becomes challenging or impossible
for them to monitor their performance on-line.
Brown (2007) notes that cognitive style is described as the connection
between personality and cognition as well as how a person learns things
generally and how he/she attacks a problem. This ability seems to depend on a
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 5
vague connection between personality and cognition. Field-
Dependence/Independence as two important cognitive styles were introduced
during the 1970s and they involve a particular way employed by a person to
process information. According to Witkin et al. (1977), there can be a contrast
between analytic and holistic (Gestalt) individuals (Khatib & Hosseinpur,
2011). The literature characterizes field-dependent (FD) learners as persons
who focus on a global organization of the surrounding field. They perceive
components of the field as fluent. They rely on the surrounding setting and its
cues and structure from their environment, making the learning process
dependent on their experience in that environment (Wooldridge & Haimes-
Bartolf, 2006).
In the same vein, the literature characterizes field-independent (FI) learners
as persons who can see the discrete parts of the field, making them distinct
from the organized background. These people are described by referring to
their analytical approach and capabilities to solve problems independently
(Wooldridge & Haimes-Bartolf, 2006). Some scholars believe that analytic or
field- independent learners tend to outperform others regarding the deductive
method of learning (Abraham, as cited in Ranalli, 2001). They come to
conclusion that participants with the higher GEFT scores do better in terms of
their deductive learning. Based on the findings of some studies, field-
independent individuals tend to avoid talking to others. Instead, they are
inclined to find solutions to problems for themselves. These individuals are not
viewed as sociable, tending to learn by themselves. On the other hand, FD
learners are sociable people, working well in groups. They prefer interacting
more as well as having more contact with other L2 speakers (Dornyei &
Skehan, as cited in Khatib & Hosseinpur, 2011).
The study carried out by Davis (2006) showed that field-dependent
individuals are extrovert with external motivation. They are inspired by their
peer groups and authority figures. They are typically introvert and intrinsically
motivated, choosing competition and selection of activities and capability to
design studies and work structure. Regarding various models of listening
comprehension process (bottom-up and top-down processes), it is claimed that
FD learners prefer concentrating on the “whole picture”, using top-down
processing. In contrast, FI learners concentrate on details, breaking down the
6 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
wholes into pieces to derive their own hypotheses. They use bottom-up
processing (Ehrman & Leaver, as cited in Alharthi, 2015).
Many research studies have been carried out on the efficacy of the
instruction of metacognitive listening strategy on Iranian EFL learners’
listening skill (e.g., Birjandi & Rahimi, 2012; Dousti & Abolfathias, 2013;
Rasouli, Mollakhani & Karbalaei, 2013). In addition, several studies (e.g.,
Hamada, 2011, 2012, 2015; Kato, 2009) within EFL contexts have sought to
examine the mechanism of shadowing to investigate its potential positive
impact on the performance related to listening such as pronunciation, listening
comprehension skills, as well as working memory. The research on shadowing
with respect to learners’ perceptions (Karasawa, 2009) and levels of cognitive
complication (Kurata, 2007) has indicated that shadowing is cognitively
complicated. Moreover, the differences among the learners regarding their
learning styles have also been shown to influence their language learning
(Oxford, 2001). Yet, no study has been done to embed metacognitive strategies
into shadowing activity in order to render it cognitively less demanding and
more useful for L2 learners’ listening comprehension. Therefore, the current
study aimed at answering the following research question:
RQ: Is there any significant difference between the effect of teaching
metacognitive listening strategy during shadowing activity on field-dependent
and field-independent EFL learners’ listening comprehension?
Method
Participants
In this study, 85 female EFL learners from a language institute in Tehran, at
the pre-intermediate level of proficiency with the age range of 18-35 were
selected out of the initial 120 participants based on their performance on a
piloted PET. In order to categorize the homogenized participants into two
groups of field-dependent and field-independent the researcher administered
"Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT)". Based on their performance on the
test, participants whose scores were 11 or lower were considered as field-
dependent (FD) and those who scored 12 or higher were categorized as field-
independent (FI) learners. The results of the test indicated that 49 individuals
were FD and 36 were FI. The participants were from different cities with a
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 7
wide variety of socio-cultural and ethnographic backgrounds. Furthermore,
almost all of them had a university degree in different fields.
Instrumentation
The following instruments and instructional materials were utilized in this
study in order to implement the treatment and to collect the data:
Preliminary English Test (PET). Preliminary English Test (PET) is an
English language proficiency test, which is considered as one of the
standardized tests from the series of Cambridge ESOL. In this study a sample
of PET was administered to participants in order to homogenize them in terms
of language proficiency. This test was adopted from the book ‘Past
Examination Papers’, published December 2008, by university of Cambridge,
ESOL Examinations. PET is designed for people who can use every day
written and spoken English at intermediate level. It tests four language skills:
Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. The Cronbach's Alpha was
employed for this purpose and an acceptable reliability of .93 was obtained.
Writing Rating Scale. The rating scale used for the writing section of PET,
was based on Cambridge General Mark Schemes for Writing. The score given
based on the rating scale ranges from 0-5, which was then translated into a
score of 15 for each participant. The criteria for assessing the writing included
relevance, understandability, accuracy, coherence and organization and the
range of vocabulary used.
Speaking Rating Scale. Cambridge General Mark Schemes for speaking
section was used as the rating scale to rate the participants’ oral proficiency.
The rating scale is based on the criteria ranging from 0-5, which was then
translated to 15 based on the scoring guidelines. There were five analytic
criteria based on this rating scale including grammar, vocabulary, discourse
management, pronunciation, and interactive communication.
The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). Group Embedded Figures
Test (GEFT) is one of the most widely used tests in the Second Language
Acquisition research to investigate FD/FI learning styles. It is a paper-and-
pencil based test, developed by Witkin and his associates in 1971. Skehan (as
cited in Khatib & Hosseinpur, 2011, p. 2) indicates that applicants are provided
8 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
with a booklet with simple visual figures embedded inside progressively more
complicated visual figures.
The applicants are expected to locate the hidden simple form or figure in
the more complex one in a given time (12 minutes). Eighteen complex figures
make up the GEFT, with each of them being an embedded simple figure.
According to the number of correct answers, the GEFT scores can range from 0
(the most FD or global) to 18 (the most FI or analytic).Witkin et al. (1971)
reported that the validity of GEFT calculated between GEFT scores and the
Embedded Figures test outcomes has produced correlation coefficients of .82
for men and .79 for women.
Story book for shadowing activity. In order to control the difficulty of
content and vocabulary used in the textbook, and also to provide a motivating
material for learners, the researcher selected an audio-book version of Anne of
Green Gables (Montgomery, retold by Collins) for daily shadowing training.
Anne of Green Gables is from the second stage of Penguin Active Reading
Collection with 600 headwords, which is appropriate for the participants’ level
of proficiency. The first two chapters of the book were taught during the
instruction.
Posttest of Listening. The test which was used as posttest in order to
examine FD and FI learners’ listening comprehension skill after the treatment
was the listening section of another PET extracted from the book “Preliminary
English Test for Schools, published by university of Cambridge, ESOL
Examinations (2009). The reliability of this test was calculated through piloting
and running Cronbach’s alpha. The results indicated that the posttest of
listening had a reliability of .814 which is considered acceptable (Brown,
2007).
Procedure
In this section the steps the researcher took in order to select the
participants, provide them with the treatment, and compile the data are
explained in a chronological order:
Pre-Treatment Stage. First of all, a PET was administered to a group of
30 female students with almost similar characteristics to the target sample in
order to carry out item analysis and examine the reliability of the test. The
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 9
results of item analysis indicated that three items in the test were
malfunctioning which were removed from the test to add to its reliability. Then,
the researcher administered the piloted PET to 120 pre-intermediate female
students in order to select a homogenized sample of participants in terms of
their language proficiency. Based on the results of the test, 85 students whose
scores fell between one standard deviation above and below the sample mean
were selected as the participants of the study in order to discard the learners
with very high and low language proficiency level in the selected sample.
Then, the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was administered to the
85 participants in order to categorize them into two groups of FD and FI. The
results of GEFT showed that 49 individuals were FD and 36 were FI. These
participants were then put into two groups of FD and FI. It should be noted that
these two groups received the treatment sitting in several classes. Both
experimental groups practiced listening comprehension through shadowing
activity and applying metacognitive strategies, with no difference in instruction
in order to see whether there is a significant difference between the effect of the
treatment on the FD and FI learners’ listening comprehension. The
homogeneity of the two groups was also checked in terms of their listening
comprehension at the outset.
Metacognitive Strategy Training and Shadowing Activity (Treatment).
The participants practiced listening comprehension through shadowing or
online tracking of the speech they heard. This online process was followed for
five weeks (twice a week for 10 sessions), during which the participants
practiced the version of the shadowing procedure provided by Kadota and
Tamai (2004). The researcher used this model since it has shown to result in
significant improvement in listening comprehension skills (Hamada, as cited in
Hamada, 2015). The empirical studies conducted by Shiki, Mori, Kadota and
Yoshida (2010) and Hamada (2012) have proposed five or six repetitions of
shadowing for listening improvement, so the researcher did the same in this
study to see the best possible result.
During the five weeks of shadowing practice, which occurred during 10
sessions in total, both experimental groups also received metacognitive
listening strategy training. In fact, in this study metacognitive strategies were
10 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
embedded into shadowing activity in order to maximize the listening
achievement. Therefore, the procedure results from the interaction between two
listening techniques, which approximately took 45 minutes out of two hours in
each session.
At the very first session of the training, the researcher explained different
learning strategies (cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective strategies).
She also talked about the importance of metacognitive strategies and their
superiority to other strategies to help students become more self-regulated in
the language learning process. Likewise, two classes received metacognitive
strategy training during the semester according to the model proposed by
Vandergrift and Tafaghodtari (2010) and the strategies included monitoring,
evaluation, planning, and selective attention. At every stage, the students should
work on shadowing the whole target passage with no pauses. The researcher as
the instructor played the audio (CD) and all participants should continuously
shadow, with no pair working involved during the process of shadowing. The
steps taken during the procedure based on the strategy training and shadowing
activity are as follows:
The first stage was pre-listening which is also called
planning/predicting stage. During this stage, the students were informed
of the topic of the story, and they were asked to predict the types of
information based on their background knowledge and possible words
they might hear. To this aim, the learners were given the title of the
story and asked to write down some of the keywords they would hear in
the story, and they were also encouraged to come up with a plot.
The second stage was selective attention, which is also called ‘first
listen’ or ‘first verification’ stage. At this stage, the students listened to
the passage, during which they verified their initial hypotheses through
selectively paying attention to the sections of the audio as required by
each individual based on their notes at stage one.
At the third stage, students started shadowing practice: they listened to
the text and then mumbled or silently shadowed the incoming sounds
twice without the text. To assist learners in doing so, the researcher
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 11
paused the audio after each sentence so that the learners could manage
to follow the speaker.
At this point, which was an initial evaluation stage, the participants
worked in pairs to compare their predictions and the information they
comprehended during the shadowing practice. The researcher tried to
encourage them to discuss points of disagreement and to try to modify
their hypotheses. More specifically, at stage four, the participants
worked in pairs to find out the possible ambiguities involved in their
comprehension of the text for the next stage.
During this stage, students performed parallel reading, which included
shadowing while reading the text, and checked their understanding
against the script for three minutes. Then, using metacognitive
strategies, they verified points of earlier disagreement, made
corrections, and wrote down additional details that they had understood
during the second phase of shadowing.
As the next stage of shadowing procedure, the students shadowed for
two more times and reviewed the text for three minutes, to clarify
difficult sounds and the meaning of the phrases, sentences and entire
text. As this second verification stage, they had a class discussion in
which all class members were required to verify the main points and
reconsider more details. They also reflected on how they had arrived at
the meaning of certain words or parts of the text.
To complete the process of shadowing, the students listened to the
passage for the last time and shadowed the text. This stage involved
content shadowing, which focused more on the meaning. At the final
verification stage, students listened particularly for the information
disclosed in the class discussion, in case they had failed to recognize it
earlier.
At the final stage called reflection stage, each student completed a
personal reflection on the listening process and wrote goals for the next
listening activity based on the earlier discussion of strategies.
12 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
Post-Treatment Stage. After the treatment, participants in both classes
were tested in terms of listening comprehension skills through the listening
section of another version of Preliminary English Test (PET), which is
considered as posttest in the present study.
Data Analysis
In line with the research question and the design of study which was
posttest only, different descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. First,
the reliability of PET was calculated through Cronbach’s Alpha formula after
piloting the test. To provide the data which were needed to show the
homogeneity of the learners in terms of langue proficiency, descriptive statistics
such as standard deviation and mean score were used. As for inferential
statistics, an independent samples t-test was conducted to analyze the scores
obtained from posttest.
Results
The Results of the PET Pilot Study
In this study PET was utilized to establish the homogeneity of
participants in terms of language proficiency. The reliability of this
procedure was dependent on the reliability of PET, which was first piloted
on a sample of 30 EFL learners. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and
the results of Cronbach’s Alpha during the pilot phase.
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of PET (Pilot Study)
Statistic
Mean Variance
Std.
Deviation Minimum Maximum Skewness Kurtosis
Kolmogorov-
Smirnova
Cronbach's
Alpha
PET
Pilot 38.6 6.033 2.456 34.00 42.00 -.397 -.979 .112 .926
PET
Pilot
Writing
7.50 2.879 1.696 4.00 11.00 .000 -.391
.200
PET
Pilot
Speaking
7.26 5.099 2.258 3.00 12.00 .222 -.536
.200
According to the results of the pilot study, reliability index of PET
turned out to be 0.93. It should be noted that two items in the reading
section and one item in the listening section were removed due to the fact
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 13
that they adversely affected the reliability of PET. Table 2 shows the results
of the reliability analysis before removing the malfunctioning items.
Table 2
Cronbach’s Alpha of PET before Removing the Malfunctioning Items
Cronbach's
Alpha
Cronbach's Alpha Based on
Standardized Items N of Items
.919 .921 62
The reliability of the speaking and writing sections of the PET were
estimated through employing inter-rater reliability procedure. Two raters scored
the writing and speaking performance of the pilot group and the degree of
correlation between the sets of scores by the two raters was used as an index of
reliability. Due to the fact that writing and speaking scores were normally
distributed based on the results of Kolmogorov Smirnov test of Normality
(Table 1) (p=.2>0.05), Pearson correlation coefficient was used to estimate the
inter-rater reliability. Table 3 shows the results of Pearson correlation
coefficient between the scores given by the two raters for speaking and writing
performances of the pilot students.
Table 3
Inter-rater reliability coefficient for PET Writing and Speaking (Pilot Study)
Writing Writing sample rater 2
Writing sample rater 1 Pearson Correlation .856**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 30
Speaking Speaking sample rater 2
Speaking sample rater 1 Pearson Correlation .921**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 30
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
14 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
As seen in Table 3, the correlation coefficient between the two raters’ scores
came out to be 0.86 for the writing (p=.0005<.05), and 0.92 for the speaking
scores (p=.0005<.05). Therefore, significant consistency was observed between
the ratings of the two raters and either rater’s scoring could be considered in the
main administration of PET. Since in the present study, the listening section of
another version of PET, “Preliminary English Test for Schools”, published by
university of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (2009), was used as the posttest,
this listening test was also piloted on 30 participants having similar
characteristics to the main participants and Cronbach’s Alpha was run on the
obtained scores.
Table 4 presents the descriptive statistics and the results of Cronbach’s
Alpha for the posttest of listening pilot phase. According to the results of the
pilot study, reliability index of this PET turned out to be .814, which was an
acceptable index of reliability.
Table 4
Descriptive Statistics and Cronbach’s Alpha of PET Posttest Listening (Pilot phase)
Minimu
m
Maximu
m
Mean Std.
Deviatio
n
Varianc
e
Skewness Kurtosis
Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Std.
Error Statistic Std.
Error Cronbach’
s Alpha
Listening
Posttest
Pilot
7.00 25.00 14.900 5.26111 27.679 .315 .427 -.939 .833 .814
The Results of PET Main Administration. As stated before, initially 120
language learners were selected based on their availability. The selected
learners took the PET so that their PET scores could be used as a criterion to
single out those participants who had the closest scores to the mean score. In
other words, the attempt aimed at selecting only participants with homogenized
English language proficiency. Moreover, since inter-rater reliability was
established during the pilot phase, one of the scorers scored the writing and
speaking sections of PET. Table 5 shows the descriptive statistics of the 120
pre-intermediate language learners.
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 15
Table 5
Descriptive Statistics of the PET Main Administration
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
PET 120 51.00 86.00 67.9167 7.47835
Valid N (listwise) 120
Table 5 shows that students had a mean score of 67.92 (SD=7.48) on PET. To
choose those students with homogenized language proficiency, students whose
PET scores fell within the range of mean score ±1 SD were extracted from the
pool of 120 language learners which resulted in a sample of 85 students. Table
6 shows the descriptive statistics of the selected participants.
Table 6
Descriptive Statistics of the Selected Sample
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
PETHomogenized 85 60.00 75.00 67.4941 3.86259
Valid N (listwise) 85
As indicated in Table 6, the mean score of the selected students turned out to be
67.49 (SD=3.86). The mean score of the selected students did not change a lot
from that of the initial pool of students, but their SD had almost half reduced,
which is an indication of a more homogenized sample of participants. After
establishing the homogeneity of students they were further divided into two
groups of FD and FI based on their performance on GEFT. Table 7 shows the
descriptive statistics of the two groups of FD and FI on PET.
Table 7
Descriptive Statistics of the PET after Group Assignment
FD N Mean Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Kolmogorov-Smirnov
Statistic df Sig.
Listening FI 36 69.889 2.40819 .35136 .093 36 .190
FD 49 70.142 2.04090 .34871 .091 49 .190
As demonstrated in Table 7, a subtle difference is observed in the PET mean
score of the two groups. In order to see whether this difference was significant
16 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
prior to the treatment, an independent samples t-test, which was legitimate due
to the normality of the distribution of scores (Kolmogorov-Smirnov results in
Table 8) was run. Table8 shows the results.
Table 8
Results of Independent Samples t-Test on Field-Dependent and Field-Independent Groups’ PET
(Pre-Treatment Stage)
Levene's
Test for
Equality of
Variances
t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. t df Sig.
(2-
tailed
)
Mean
Difference
Std.
Error
Differe
nce
95%
Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Listen
ing
Equal
variances
assumed
1.224 .272 .824 83 .23 -.25397 .50631 -.683 1.324
Equal
variances
not
assumed
.824 82.0 .2356 -.25397 .49531 -.683 1.324
Based on the results of Table 8, no significant difference was observed in the
mean score of the participants of the FD and FI groups and homogeneity was
established prior to the treatment. As a further safe guard, the two groups were
also compared in terms of their listening comprehension. For this purpose, the
researcher drew the descriptive statistics for the listening part of the PET. The
results are demonstrated in Table 9 below.
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 17
Table 9
Descriptive Statistics of the PET Listening after Group Assignment
Group Statistics
Grouping N Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
Mean
Skewness
Stat.
Std. Error of
Skewness
Skewness
Ratio
Listening
Pretest
FI 36 13.6111 1.91651 .31942 .387 .393 .984
FD 49 13.3878 1.51130 .21590 -.097 .340 -.285
The mean scores of both groups as demonstrated by Table 9, were very close to
each other and the skewness ratios fell within the acceptable range of +/- 1.96
and as a result, the researcher was able to run an independent samples t-test.
The results are presented in Table 10.
Table 10
Results of Independent Samples t-Test on Field-Dependent and Field-Independent Groups’ PET
Listening (Pre-Treatment Stage)
Levene's
Test for
Equality of
Variances t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. t df
Sig.
(2-
tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
95%
Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Listening
Pretest
Equal
variances
assumed
1.532 .219 .601 83 .550 .22336 .3718 -.51626 .96297
Equal
variances
not
assumed
.579 64.47 .564 .22336 .3855 -.54674 .99345
As illustrated in Table 10, with equal variances assumed (F= 1.532, p=
.219>.05), there was no significant difference between the listening mean score
of the two groups (t= .601, df= 83, p= .55>.05, two-tailed) and thus
homogeneity between the two groups was also established in terms of the
dependent variable of the study.
18 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
Posttest Results. Before starting the statistical analysis related to the
comparison of scores between the two groups of FD and FI students on the
posttest, it deemed necessary to examine the data for normalcy and decide
accordingly on parametric or non-parametric statistics. Therefore, the
descriptive statistics of the listening posttest were extracted and normality of
data was explored using Kolmogorov Smirnov test. The descriptive statistics of
data and output of Kolmogorov Smirnov test of normality are found in Table
11.
Table 11
Descriptive Statistics of the Listening Posttest
FD N Mean Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Kolmogorov-Smirnov
Statistic df Sig.
Listening FI 36 17.7222 2.76314 .46052 .096 36 .200*
FD 49 17.1837 3.38301 .48329 .091 49 .200*
Table 11 indicates that all the significant levels for listening posttest scores of
the two groups (FD and FI groups) are greater than the alpha level of 0.05.
Accordingly, the data sets enjoy normal distribution, which suggests that
parametric statistics should be used for the inferential statistical analysis.
According to this table, FI and FD participants obtained almost similar mean
scores on the posttest (17.72 and 17.18, respectively). In order to see whether
this mean difference was significant or not, an independent samples t-test had
to be run. Since the distribution of scores enjoyed acceptable normality,
running the independent samples t-test was legitimate. Table 12 demonstrates
the results of the independent samples t-test run on the posttest results of FI and
FD participants.
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 19
Table 12
Results of Independent Samples t-Test on Field-Dependent and Field-Independent Groups’
Listening Posttest
Levene's
Test for
Equality of
Variances
t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. t df Sig.
(2-
tailed
)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Lis
tenin
g
Equal
variances
assumed
1.370 .245 .782 83 .436 .53855 .68852 -.83089 1.90799
Equal
variances
not
assumed
.807 82.012 .422 .53855 .66757 -.78945 1.86655
As indicated in Table 12, the Levene’s test of equality of variances indicated
that the two sets of scores had equal variances (F=1.37, p=.24>0.05). The
results (t=0.78, df= 83, p=.44>0.05, two-tailed), revealed that there was no
significant difference between listening posttest scores of FI and FD groups.
Therefore, it can be claimed that metacognitive strategy training during
shadowing had similar effect on the listening comprehension of FI and FD EFL
students.
Discussion
The present study attempted to examine how metacognitive strategy
training during shadowing affects FI and FD students’ listening comprehension.
Through the screening conducted by PET scores, 85 students with similar
language proficiency underwent experimentation. Out of the 85 students, 36
students were FI and 49 were FD. According to the results, no differential
effect was found for metacognitive strategy training coupled with shadowing
on the two different cognitive styles.
The fact that metacognitive strategy training and shadowing had similar
effect on the listening comprehension of the FI and FD learners could be
associated with the potentials of metacognitive strategy training to equally
benefit all students regardless of their cognitive styles. In other words, the effect
of metacognitive strategy training might have neutralized the effect of field-
20 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
dependency and field-independency. Generally, literature is in favor of strategy
use and students’ achievement in language learning (Dreyer & Oxford, 1996;
Green & Oxford, 1995; Griffiths, 2003; Kyungsim & Leavell, 2006; Park,
1997; Yang, 2009). It has also been claimed that metacognitive strategies are
the most significant ones among other language learning strategies (Anderson,
1991), which might be another explanation for the fact that both FI and FD
students similarly benefited from metacognitive strategy training. Goh (2002)
asserts that metacognitive strategies are very essential because learners’
awareness of metacognitive strategies is connected with effective learning in all
learning contexts. The contribution of metacognitive strategies to better
listening performance has also been documented in literature (e.g., O’Malley &
Chamot, 1990; Thompson & Rubin, 1996; Vandergrift, 2003).
Vandergrift (2003), as an example, investigated the effect of prediction
strategy on listening comprehension of 41 participants registered to learn
French as a second language. He found out that students reacted positively to
the prediction strategy training and highlighted the benefits of prediction
strategies. He concluded that metacognitive strategy training is beneficial for
listening comprehension of language learners. In addition, it can be argued that
metacognitive strategy training is beneficial to all students with different
learning styles on the ground that no matter how cognitively a person is
oriented, that person needs to do some planning and goal setting to try to
achieve them. Diaz (2014), Rahimirad and Zaree (2015), and King (1999) all
commented that metacognition deals with higher order thinking in which one
can control and monitor his own action. This element of planning and self-
control is evident in the conceptualization of metacognition, which is in line
with previous studies regarding metacognition and language achievement.
According to Oxford (1990), through using metacognitive strategies, students
are allowed to assess their own learning pattern and progress. Therefore, it is
justifiable to expect no significant difference between the effect of
metacognitive strategies on listening comprehension of FI and FD students.
Apart from what was discussed above and in order to explain the equal
effect of metacognitive strategy training on the listening skill of FD and FI EFL
learners, another issue also needs to be taken into account. The current study
mixed the metacognitive strategy training with shadowing which might further
explain why the FD and FI learners had equal performance after the treatment
The Effect of Teaching Metacognitive … 21
period. The point is that metacognitive strategy training was coupled with
shadowing that boosted the effect of metacognitive strategy training through
causing memory boost and remembrance (Kadota, 2007). In other words,
shadowing in listening facilitates the listening process through the transfer of
micro levels to macro levels (Tamai, 1992). In Iranian EFL context, studies by
Amoli and Ghanbari (2013), Nekoueizadeh and Bahrani (2013), and Zakeri
(2014) have pointed to the positive effect of shadowing on oral accuracy.
Hamada (2012) also pointed to the use of shadowing with a focus on learner
awareness. In his study, he included metacognitive strategies like attention
strategies, auditory monitoring, self-monitoring, and comprehension
monitoring and found out that mixing shadowing and metacognitive strategy
training had a higher impact on the listening of Japanese English learners. He
concluded that learner awareness (metacognitive awareness) contributes to the
effectiveness of shadowing.
Although cognitive style has been referred to as a stable trait (Richardson
2011), some believe it is something flexible and adaptable (Little & Singleton,
1990). Dörnyei (2005) has also pointed to style stretching as a result of training,
which might explain the findings of the current study. In other words, it can be
argued that metacognitive strategy training coupled with shadowing could
impel the learners with different learning styles to take a convergent approach
in dealing with the learning tasks.
Finally, a note of caution seems necessary with regard to the findings of the
study. The fact that FD and FI students had similar performance on the
listening posttest after strategy training during shadowing could also be
attributed to the process of categorizing learners to FD and FI groups.
According to GEFT’s manual, learners with GEFT scores bellow 12 were
considered FD and those above were considered FI. However, this procedure
might be misleading because in the first place GEFT scores show the place of a
person on field in/dependency spectrum with a score of 0 showing the highest
degree of field-dependency and 18 showing the highest degree of field-
independency. Accordingly, when the students’ scores are close to the
midpoint, while being classified as FD or FI, it becomes difficult to firmly state
that the performance of the learners were similar in spite of having different
learning styles.
22 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
The researcher encountered two limitations during the present study. First,
the results of this study can be generalized only to adult learners since the
researcher had passed adults T.T.C. course and according to the institutional
rules, she was allowed to teach only the learners in the age range of 18 and
above. The second limitation was that the researcher had access just to the
female learners as she worked in a gender segregated language school.
The findings of the study have several implications for language teaching
and learning. Based on the findings of the current study, teachers’ awareness
regarding metacognitive strategy training and listening comprehension
enhancement should be raised. Moreover, teacher training programs can
include strategy training in general and metacognitive strategy training in
particular to prepare teachers for strategy training in language classrooms.
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28 The Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice Vol. 10, No.21, Fall & Winter 2017
Biodata
Mona Khabiri is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Islamic Azad
University, Central Tehran Branch and the Director of Journal of English
Language Studies (JELS). She mainly teaches language testing, research
methodology, seminar in TEFL issues, and teaching language methodology at
graduate and doctoral level and her main areas of interest include teacher
education, cooperative learning, language testing and research. She has
published papers in international and national academic journals and presented
in several national and international seminars.
Parastoo Alizadeh Oghyanous received her Master’s degree in Teaching
English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in 2017 from Islamic Azad University,
Tehran Central Branch. She has presented papers at national conferences and
published them in ELT journals. Her areas of interest are teaching and learning
strategies, learning styles, brain-based teaching and, metacognition.